


Murder on the River Thames

by OneHandedBooks



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Gen, Just how many monsters are in this town?, M/M, Scotland Yard, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2018-10-30 03:54:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10868532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneHandedBooks/pseuds/OneHandedBooks
Summary: Detective Chief Inspector Jack Crawford recruits Doctor Hannibal Lecter, Professor of Occult Phenomenon, to assist  Detective Inspector Will Graham and his team with a tricky murder case. What could possibly go wrong?!





	1. Chapter 1

**Murder on the Thames: London Metropolitan Police, Scotland Yard Stymied**  
_The Daily Telegraph and Courier, 2 March 1854_

“Doctor Lecter!” Jack hailed, raising his dark grey derby and sauntering down the aisle from the gallery towards the lectern.

Hannibal gathered up his lecture notes and tapped them neatly into place, then looked up with a small delighted smile. “Detective Chief Inspector Crawford. I haven’t seen you since the gala opening of the Medieval Monsters exhibit. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Have you seen the papers recently?”

Hannibal nodded, plastering on a wonderfully sad and concerned expression. “I have. A terrible thing. Three dockworkers ripped apart in as many months. I’ve heard some speculate that it was a wild bear escaped from a traveling show.” He leaned over the lectern conspiratorially. “Although, I’ll confess that sounds far-fetched.”

Jack nodded, letting his jovial smile fade. “There’s some who’ve speculated far worse. Men who become animals at the full moon.” He sighed and shrugged. He knew how it sounded, but what ordinary man could inflict such damage?

Hannibal shook his head, a small smirk playing on his lips. “Werewolves? You know better than that, Jack.”

Jack sighed again and drummed his fingers on the brim of his hat. “I know. Far-fetched indeed. But we’re at a loss here, Hannibal, and I know you’ve made many studies of strange phenomenon.”

“And every time disproved all mystical explanations, Jack. Men are capable of horrors enough without inventing creatures of the night. One must expand one’s imagination beyond Dark Age folktales.”

Jack nodded. “Well then, can I borrow your imagination?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Victims’ Families Place Roses at Site of Dockside Deaths**  
_The Illustrated London News, A2, 6 March 1854_

Detective Inspector Will Graham stalked through the muddy streets towards Scotland Yard. The slowly setting sun glinted redly off the engraved brass buttons of his black wool overcoat, the octagonal steel frames of his greysmoke sunglasses. His mind was so entirely occupied by the argument that he intended to have with Jack Crawford in the very immediate future that he almost stepped directly into the path of a passing hansom.

A small quick hand at his elbow pulled him away and he stumbled over the curb and back onto the pavement almost knocking over the little newsboy who’d rescued him. Will startled and stepped aside to avoid the boy, nearly tripping over his box of newspapers and then over his own feet.

“Excuse me!” the boy squeaked, hands up. “Oh! I am _that_ sorry, sir. I really am. Only just…the cab, you see, sir…”

“That’s all right,” Will said gruffly. “It was my fault.”

The boy had pulled him away in time to avoid the cab, but not the spray of gritty rainwater thrown up by its ratcheting wheels. Will unbuttoned his overcoat and shook it out aggressively, brushed beaded water from his trousers with a gloved hand.

The scrawny boy looked up at Will hopefully and thrust a screaming broadside at him. “Terrible doings in the city, sir. Read all about it! Only a penny.”

Will squinted down at the boy and took his pamphlet. He stowed his sunglasses carefully in his suit pocket, trading them for a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. It was hardly necessary, however, as the trumpeting panicked headline took up most of the front page. **Beast of London Strikes Again! City Terrified!** it read in great red letters.

He groaned under his breath and turned the paper over. On the back was a very unflattering sketch of him and Jack standing beside an iron lamppost on the south bank of the Thames with the italicized caption " _Dimwitted investigators baffled by dockside monster!_ "

“A penny, sir?” the boy ventured cautiously, ink-grimed hand outstretched.

Will made a small growling sound of exasperation, shoved his hand in the pocket of his trousers, and came out with a silver florin. “Here. I’ll have everything you’ve got left.”

He gathered up the boy’s remaining papers and headed across the street and up the precinct’s steep stone steps to meet Jack, ignoring the boy’s offer of change, oblivious to the grinning little gasp of gratitude behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Persistent Fog Casts Pall Over the City**  
_The Illustrated London News, A1, 6 March 1854_

Hannibal and Jack were sitting in Jack’s office discussing the case of the murdered dockworkers when Will shouldered the door open. He strode in and dumped his armload of cheap newsprint onto Jack’s desk with a prickly flourish.

“You see...,” he started then stopped abruptly as he caught sight of the man sitting opposite Jack, looking up at him with a little smile. The man’s keen amber eyes were expectant and far too interested.

Will adjusted his spectacles so the wire rims obscured his eyes and turned slightly away, putting as much of his back to Jack’s unannounced guest as he could without seeming excessively rude.

“You wanted to see me, Jack?” he said warily.

“Yes, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Doctor Hannibal Lecter, Professor of Occult Phenomenon at Kings College. Hannibal, this is Detective Inspector Will Graham, the Yard’s youngest senior investigator.”

Hannibal put on a wide engaging expression and offered his hand immediately. “Inspector Graham, you have an impressive reputation. Our Chief Inspector here tells me you have a knack for the monsters.”

Will reluctantly turned the slightest possible amount towards Hannibal, his gaze fixed somewhere over Hannibal’s left shoulder, and shook his hand once, firmly. “Dr. Lecter.”

“Not fond of eye contact, are you?”

“Eyes are distracting,” Will responded acerbically. “See too much. Don’t see enough.”

He turned then and stared directly at Hannibal as though to underline the point. The steel spectacles flashed like mortuary coins in the intermittent flare of the gaslight, concealing his eyes. Nevertheless, Hannibal could still feel their penetrating weight. He suppressed a delighted smile.

Will stalked past Hannibal to the far side of the room, finding himself inexplicably annoyed by the man. He took his gloves off and stuffed them in his coat pocket, set his top hat on the carved cabinet bar, and stripped out of his overcoat with an irritated huff, throwing it over the spindle back of a curved wooden chair. He rubbed his hands restlessly down the front of his dark suit coat and tugged at his stiff white collar. It was always so _close_ in this damned office. He pulled out his scratched gold pocket watch, clicked the case open then shut, and stuffed it back in his waistcoat pocket without reading it.

Hannibal watched Will closely as he quarreled with his hat, his clothes, his watch. The investigator’s greatcoat and shoes were shabbier than would be expected for an officer of his rank, years out of date, but the steel-frame, smoke-lensed sunglasses sticking out of the side pocket of his suit coat were the very bleeding-edge of fashion and his leather gloves were exceptionally fine. Interesting.

Jack threw Hannibal a narrow, complex look of warning and apology then glanced back at Will. “Yes. I wanted to talk to you about the dockside murders. More accurately, I called you here to discuss the fact that I’ve asked Dr. Lecter to assist you in their investigation.” “To assist us,” he amended, off Will’s aggravated expression.

Jack turned to Hannibal optimistically. “You’ve read our Chief Surgeon's last report, Dr. Lecter. Do you think there’s a possibility that it was an…an animal attack?”

“It was no animal, Jack,” Will said, cutting Hannibal off just as he started to respond. “Certainly not the kind of animal you’re thinking about in any case,” he muttered.

“How can you be so sure, Will?” Jack demanded, ignoring the last little jibe. He riffled though the files on his desk. “What does all this tell you that it does not tell me?”

“It isn’t so much what _is_ there as what _isn’t_ there. “

“And what _isn’t_ there?”

Will turned his back on Jack and Hannibal and stood with his hands clasped behind him, looking out Jack’s window into the busy courtyard below. Shift change- the day players were heading out to homes and hot meals, the night boys just coming on.

“First, there’s no evidence of claw marks on the cobblestones," Will started, "which you’d expect from an animal running away.”

Jack drew breath to interject and Will held up his hand and cut him off without looking back at him. “I know. I know. The gouges in the tavern wall. Jack, those must be seven feet high. No animal is so tall.”

“A bear,” Jack suggested stubbornly. “Standing on its hind legs.”

“Standing on its hind legs,” Will repeated. “A seven foot tall bear on its hind legs that no one saw then and no one has seen since.”

Jack spread his hands in exasperation and looked at Hannibal for help. Will ignored him, closed his eyes and let the silvery pendulum swing in the dark of his mind, rewinding time until he was looking at the last crime scene. Then, before Hannibal could respond to Jack’s wordless entreaty, Will began to speak, his voice confident, but distant.

“The slashes in the flesh are clean. Far too clean for an animal. Almost surgical. The marks are shaped like claws, but no claws would make such clean lines. The bite marks, on the other hand, are quite ragged, although in this case far more ragged than one would expect from teeth in regular use in an animal’s life. These are almost like stone teeth… or…or teeth that have been carved from teeth.”

“Teeth carved from teeth,” Jack said. “What does that even mean?”

Will shrugged him off and kept looking through his memories of the murdered man. He wasn’t sure what he meant yet anyway. “Then there’s the fact that for all the biting, there appears to be little eating. Perhaps no eating at all. No large pieces were missing in any case.”

“Will, two of the three were missing their heads.”

Will shook his head, exasperated, and came forward out of his recollection. “Those heads are halfway to the sea by now. There was no evidence of dragging, no bloody prints at the scene, no dripping as though the heads were carried away.” Will turned back to face them then. “We’re looking for a man, Jack. Just a man.”

Hannibal smiled and tried to catch Will’s eye again. “How fascinating. You’re an eidetiker.”

Will waved his hand dismissively. “I’m not psychic, Dr. Lecter. I thought your studies involved debunking so-called mystical events, not advocating for their truth.”

What an arrogant boy you are, Hannibal thought with a little thrill of pleasure. He allowed himself another small smile.

“Please don’t misunderstand, Inspector; an eidetiker isn’t a psychic. It’s someone with what I’d call a _‘photographic’_ memory. And I don’t have a mandate to debunk mystical events, as you’ve suggested. It’s only that none of the ones I’ve studied have turned out to be real.” He offered a warmer, harmless scholar smile. “Perhaps someday.”

Will sighed and rolled his head side to side and tried again. “I don’t need an assistant, Jack. I already have Katz, plus Price and Zeller. That’s more than enough.”

“First, Katz is only on loan from Pinkerton, so I don’t know how long we’re going to have her. Second, I’m not asking, I’m telling. We’ve had three of these attacks in the last three months and we’re nowhere near solving them. We cannot have another or all of London is going to be screaming for my head. Besides, Dr. Lecter wouldn’t be your assistant. He would be a…consultant to this office. He was a surgeon before he was a teacher, you know. He has wide ranging knowledge of medicine, anthropometry, anatomy, alienism, entomology … .”

“I already have much of that knowledge myself,” Will interrupted.

“Much maybe, but certainly not all. And what do you know about werewolves?” Jack challenged.

“For God’s sake, Jack,” Will snapped, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “There is no such thing as werewolves.”

“Of course not,” Hannibal broke in smoothly, tiring of the surly exchange. “At least, not as I’ve encountered in my studies.”

Hannibal shifted in his chair, turning his attention entirely to Will. “But this person, if it is a person as you posit, Inspector Graham, and not an escaped animal, may believe himself to be a man trapped in the body of an animal. If so, he may very well be drawing on the old skinchanger myths to govern his behavior.” He stopped and waited for Will to draw the logical conclusion himself.

“And you are uniquely qualified to advise us on those old myths I suppose.”

“Quite.”

“And we may be able to track him, to predict his next move, based on those old myths,” Will concluded slowly.

“Yes.”

Will nodded as the idea of Dr. Lecter took hold in his mind. He might prove useful after all. “All right. I’ll consult with you, Dr. Lecter.”

“How kind of you to consider it,” Hannibal said, inclining his head with ostentatious magnanimity.

He saw Will pick up on the falsity and flashed him a quick genuine grin. Will felt a slight warmth in his chest and an unwelcome urge to return the comradely little smile.

“Shall I call on you tomorrow at the University? After your last class?” Will suggested, fidgeting with the edge of his glasses again.

Hannibal shook his head. “I was thinking you might call on me at my home around eight o’clock. All of my most valuable reference books are in my personal library. We could have supper and discuss the case. Will you come and bring the files?” “Photographs too,” he added, unable to help himself. “They may offer us a clue.”

Will nodded and pulled on his coat and gloves as he prepared to leave. “Tomorrow then.”

He adjusted his spectacles so that the top of the frames blocked his eyes again and grudgingly stuck out his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Lecter.”

Hannibal shook his hand, noting with great interest the unusual chill of Will’s skin, faint but perceptible even through the thin leather of his glove. “I assure you the pleasure was entirely mine, Inspector.”

Will shoved the bloom of incipient friendship away and turned to leave, then stopped suddenly with his hand on the brass knob of Jack’s office door and looked back over his shoulder. “And Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Get Katz to take a closer look at those claw marks in the tavern wall. A shilling says she finds metal in them.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Elephant Skulls Missing from British Museum**  
_The Daily Telegraph, B2, 7 March 1854_

The next morning found visiting detective Beverly Katz standing on a tall rickety ladder braced against the wall of the Anchor Bankside and held steady at the base by Scotland Yard’s only full-time photographer, Lieutenant James Price, and the Chief Surgeon, Brian Zeller.

“Find anything?” Price called up to her.

Beverly held a piece of thick white paper against the building and scraped a small wooden pick along each gouge in the wood facing. At the very end, she dislodged an incredibly small curl of steel caught on the edge of a rusted nail that had been countersunk into the tavern wall.

“I got you,” she said with a broad pleased smile.


	5. Chapter 5

**Cursed Skulls Vanish from Museum!!!**  
_Crimes of London, A1, 8 March 1854_

Will knocked briskly at the door to Hannibal’s townhouse at precisely eight o’clock. There was a brief expectant silence and then Hannibal was opening the door with an engaging smile. Will hovered uneasily on the other side of the stone threshold, a bottle of wine cradled in his gloved hands, chilly mist curling around his shoulders. 

Hannibal shivered dramatically and pushed the heavy wood door open wider. “Inspector Graham. Please, come in. You’ll catch your death out there.” 

Will took one step towards the open door and promptly slipped on the frosty stone. Hannibal caught him quickly, hands gripping his upper arm and wrist.

“Steady on, Inspector.”

“I’d have fallen all the way down those steps if you hadn’t caught me,” Will replied, chagrined.

“And you’d have dropped the wine,” Hannibal said breezily, ushering him inside and taking the bottle from him. “I am happy to have averted a tragedy.”

Will walked into the vast lamplit foyer, all warm dark wood and shadowed doorways, and Hannibal closed the door behind them.  He set the wine bottle on a spindly console table and held out his hand for Will’s damp wool overcoat.

Will glanced around, shrugging out of it. “No valet?”

Hannibal hung Will’s coat on the hall tree, then took his hat and gloves and set those aside as well. “I had a valet, but he passed away last fall. Overcome with a fever.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yes. He was a loyal employee. Sad to see him go.”

Hannibal turned to walk down the long hall towards the dining room and Will followed.

“I had the case files messengered over this afternoon. Did you receive them?”

“Down to brass tacks I see,” Hannibal said over his shoulder. “Yes, I did. They're in the library. I thought we might have supper first, before we discuss our mysterious killer. I hope you find that satisfactory. It’s so difficult to concentrate on an empty stomach, don’t you agree?”

“Mmm,” Will murmured, his attention caught by the narrow two-story room to his left. He wandered through the doorway, reeled in by the towering columns of books.

Hannibal paused, feeling Will’s absence behind him.  “Inspector?” 

He walked back down the hallway to find Will ensconced in the library.

“Here you are,” he said, concealing the little spasm of irritation with another harmless scholar smile.

Will turned in a slow circle, hands in the pockets of his suit coat, looking up into the second floor gallery. “I’m sorry,” he said absently, defenses softening as he admired the sheer amount of knowledge on offer. “How rude of me to wander off into your home uninvited.”

“Nonsense,” Hannibal said. “Of course you’re invited. My library is always open to friends.”

Will yanked his gaze away from the seduction of the stuffed second floor shelves and shot Hannibal a skeptical look. He glanced down at the broad wooden desk bisecting the front of the room and picked up the luridly illustrated one-sheet there with a raised eyebrow. **Cursed Skulls Vanish from Museum** , the headline hollered in forty point type.

“I didn’t take you for a penny-print reader, Doctor,” Will needled. “An educated man like you.”

“I find it helpful to keep track of what the public is reading. All its hopes and fears right there, in naked black and white.”

He looked over Will’s shoulder and reached past him to unfold the edge of the paper, revealing the byline. “You know, the Lounds family has been in publishing since the invention of publishing.”

Will shivered at the close unexpected heat at his back then tossed the paper onto the desk again. He rubbed his hand against his trousers as though the paper had soiled it. “I shudder to think what they were involved in before then.”

Hannibal considered that. “Midnight theaters and traveling shows, I believe. Even now they own part of The Cockpit on Middlesex Lane, if I’m not mistaken.”

“The Grand Guignol theater in Whitechapel?”

“The very one.”

Will’s mouth turned down in disgust. “Tasteless.”

Hannibal smiled slightly, teasing. “Do you often have problems with taste?”

Everyone has his flavor, Will thought, imagining the satisfying snap of teeth through flesh, then pushed it guiltily away. “My thoughts are often not tasty.”

“Nor mine.”

Will ran his fingers along the edge of a gross anatomy book lying open on Hannibal’s desk. “Yes, I expect what you see in your studies colors everything else in your world,” he murmured.

“We are what we see?” Hannibal asked, intrigued.

“See something often enough and it becomes a part of you.”

“We learn by example.”

“Yes, we do.”

Hannibal watched Will flip through a pile of notes and newspaper clippings regarding the dockside murders, torn between insisting they eat the carefully prepared supper before it got cold and continuing to watch him inhabit the library with this strangely welcome familiarity. Culinary ego won out in the end, as it often did.

He cleared his throat. “I thought we might have brandy here after supper, if that would suit you. As you see I’ve collected some things I thought you might find helpful .”

Will nodded automatically, picking up an exceedingly rare volume of Norse mythology to examine the title page.

“And of course you’re welcome to explore the library as much as you like,” Hannibal coaxed. “Before we discuss the case even.”

Will set the book reluctantly aside, pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed the corners of his eyes beneath his spectacles. “Forgive my over eagerness, Doctor. I confess I’m not terribly hungry and this case…weighs on me.”

Hannibal gave him another small, encouraging smile. “No apologies are necessary with me, Inspector. Shall we fortify ourselves for study?”

 

*          *          *

 

The long hall to the dining room was papered in voluptuous patterned burgundy and hung with paraffin lamps under etched glass shades. Their light reflected off the gilt frames of the strange and beautiful paintings lining the walls. Even more than the library, this broad avenue through the heart of the house told of enormous ancestral wealth. Every few feet was another doorway leading to another room holding another exquisite wonder- a suit of Japanese armor, the gleaming polished skull of a great stag, what was almost certainly a real canopic jar set into a little alcove in the wall- the falcon-headed calcite so flawless it should be in a museum. Its piercing painted eyes followed Will as he turned. He found himself adjusting his initial assessment of Lecter and resolved not to underestimate the man again.

The dining room at the end of the corridor was more Great Hall than anything else. Cavernous and chilly, despite the roaring fire, and crowned with a grand, sparkling, candlelit chandelier.  There were two place settings at the closest end of a long dark dining table with a bottle of wine and a basket of fresh bread between them. A cluster of flickering candles offered a small pool of warm cozy light. The rest of the table stretched away into emptiness.

Will cast a doubtful glance around the room and Hannibal nodded. “You’re right of course, it’s excessive for two people.”

Will’s skin prickled pleasantly at having been heard, and answered, without speaking.

“You may be relieved to know that dinner itself is not quite so grand,” Hannibal continued with slight apology. “I thought a simple boeuf bourguignon might make a good working supper. It will be good, in any case, to have something warm and hearty in this dreadful weather.”

“Please,” he gestured, steering Will towards the seat across from his. “I’ll only be a moment.”

Hannibal disappeared through a set of swinging French doors and then returned with two steaming bowls of rich savory stew. He set one in front of Will, then laid his own place and filled their wineglasses.

“No servants either?” Will asked, leaning close to inhale the peppery steam.

Hannibal settled in comfortably before answering- draping the perfectly pressed napkin over his lap and adjusting his perfectly arranged silverware, unconcerned by the little note of scandal in Will's voice. “I like to cook for myself. I find it a soothing hobby.”

Will hadn’t sensed anyone else in the house, but still, it was almost shocking to have it confirmed. He wasn’t sure he knew anyone of Hannibal’s apparent station who maintained no household staff of any kind.

He dug into the thick stew politely. Swallowed and smiled and made the expected noises of enjoyment. “You’re very good at it,” he commented, taking a sip of wine to clear his mouth. “You could make a living as a chef, if you ever tired of, oh, teaching and murder.”

“Teaching and murder?” Hannibal chuckled. “Is that how I should describe my pursuits?”

Will smiled sharply in return. “I suppose I should say teaching and consulting. Although, I recall Jack mentioning that you’re also a surgeon?”

“I was a surgeon, years ago.”

“What happened?”

"I killed someone.”

Will paused uncertainly with his spoon halfway to his mouth.

“Or, more accurately, I couldn’t save someone. But it felt like killing them.”

Will lifted a shoulder as though he would shrug, automatically adopting Lecter’s curious nonchalance, then caught himself and nodded sympathetically instead. “I imagine that has to happen from time to time.”

“It happened one time too many. I transferred my passions from medicine to teaching and no one has died as a result of my scholarship.”

He took a long drink of the excellent Malbec and touched the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “Have you always worked in criminal investigation?”

“Not always,” Will replied shortly.

“If I may ask, where were you before you started working for our esteemed Uncle Jack?”

The pert nickname startled Will into laughter. “I used to work for London Metropolitan,” he answered finally, dabbing the corners of his eyes.

“I understand that can be quite dangerous.” Hannibal paused, then tilted his head at Will’s bare left hand.  “No wedding ring, I see.”

“No.”

“And yet you don’t strike me as a man entirely on his own either.”

Will sat up straighter and rubbed his hand across his mouth. That was a surprising insight. And forward as well.

“Do you live with your family?” Hannibal pressed before Will could object.

Will shook his head cautiously. “I live with my daughter. Or, more accurately, my ward, Abigail Hobbs.”

“And is she like you?” Hannibal inquired, taking another causal bite of his stew.

Will drained his wine and set the glass down deliberately.  Of course there was no way Lecter could be asking what he seemed to be asking- was Abigail like him, a monster like him?

“I’m not sure I take your meaning,” he answered carefully.

“My apologies, Inspector. I should ask, does she share your interests in the criminal apprehension arts, as it were?”

Will forced a rueful, paternal laugh. “Oh, no she does not. It seems she’s more like you, in fact.”

It was Hannibal’s turn to raise an incredulous eyebrow at him.

“Medicine,” Will clarified. “She very much wants to be a doctor.”

 

*          *          *

 

Hannibal ate in contemplative silence for a time, then asked, “Tell me, Inspector, what makes you so certain Crawford is wrong about the nature of this killer?”

Will gave him a withering look.

“Humor me,” Hannibal encouraged.

“Jack believes that evil is the root of all particularly vicious acts,” Will began, then stopped. The distant clang of metal echoed in his mind, the crackling fury of fire. “He underestimates the horrors natural men are capable of,” he concluded abruptly.

Hannibal waited for Will to elaborate, watching him drag his spoon aggressively through his dish, disappointed their ease of conversation kept slipping away.

Finally, Will set the spoon down with a clack and a frustrated sigh. “Men who kill for gain, or from rage, from provocation, women who murder out of some hysterical insanity are one thing. A common enough thing. But there are those who kill many times in sequence and who seem compelled to kill on some schedule or with some criteria known only to themselves and they are another. Very rare. It is easier to say they are supernatural beasts, possessed by evil, than to try to understand them, but that tells you nothing of use.”

Hannibal leaned forward intently. “Yet, you understand them. Crawford says you have an especial talent for it.”

Will held his breath a moment, nodded reluctantly. He waited for Lecter’s face to change, as everyone’s did on learning of his so-called _affinity_ for those the world called monsters, but the good doctor remained unperturbed. No judgment, it seemed, was forthcoming. Not yet.

“So, your monster,” Hannibal began. “Or your man,” he amended dutifully off Will’s stony look. “May have some pattern then. If we can discover it…”

Will’s face fell.

“What is it?”

“It hard to say to say for certain, and I hesitate to say it at all because it only fuels his superstitions, but Jack is right; there is a pattern taking shape- this killer does seem to be in phase with the moon.” 

“I would think that would be good news and yet I can see it doesn’t please you.”

“It isn’t enough,” Will said, with sudden vehemence. “Even if we’re right about that, it gives us at best a general time he might strike, but nothing else! We have no idea _where_ he might strike again, _who_ he might strike.”

“But the dockworkers?” Hannibal ventured delicately.

Will shook his head. “There’s another body that we found elsewhere. And so far there is no motive, no useable pattern, no clues we can follow back to the source.”

Hannibal considered that, then stood and pushed his chair back resolutely. “Well then, let’s see if we can find some clues, Inspector.”

 

*          *          *

 

Will was relieved to find the library at least somewhat less overwhelming when they returned to it. That was, until, he saw the golden cage on a low table by the fireplace.

“Oh,” he said softly, “you have a clockwork songbird.”

He walked slowly across the room as though he might wake it, reached dreamily for the heavy key on the cage’s base, then drew back and looked over his shoulder at Hannibal.

“May I?”

“Of course."

Will wound the key several times, then stepped back to watch the jewel-bright bird haltingly stretch its taxidermied wings and move its beak, whistling a nearly perfect replica of the nightingale’s song.

Hannibal stooped to stare into the cage from the other side, admiring his exquisite captive and glancing up at Will’s rapt face out of the corner of his eye. “You have a passion for mechanicals?”

“My father was a watchmaker. I used to sit with him in his shop when I was just a boy.” In fact, his father had been working on a little singing bird in a box, with a tune much like this, when he’d seen him last.

Hannibal watched Will watch the bird, completely entranced. It’s clear the man is delighted, excited even, he thought. Graham’s cheeks should flush, he should be able to smell the blood rise, but there is nothing. He had been sure before. Nearly sure. But now…

“Did you see the karakuri exhibition last year?” Will asked suddenly, tearing his gaze away from the bird and interrupting Hannibal’s musing.

Hannibal smoothed a hand down the front of his brocade waistcoat. “I did. The Archer was truly astonishing. I would very much like to have one.” His voice was briefly too fervent, greedy. He covered quickly, asking “Have you seen the cinematographe, Inspector?”

Will shook his head. “I have not even heard of it.”

“It is a projector of moving images.”

Will furrowed his brow. “Like a phantasmagoria?”

“Even better. There is a man with a small photography studio in Covent Garden who sometimes makes a private exhibition of his projecting machine for a small fee. I believe he invented it. It can be difficult to coax him to talk about it though; he has an unfortunate harelip and a bit of a stutter.”

“Spend a lot of time in Covent Garden, Dr. Lecter?” Will replied tartly. “Seedy environs for a man of your breeding.”

“The most brilliant innovations, Inspector, can often be found at the very edges of society.”

“Is that so?”

“It is.” He smiled slightly to soften the brusque pronouncement then turned away to open the doors of a cleverly concealed little cabinet bar to the right of the fireplace. "You'll have a brandy, won’t you, Inspector? Chase away the chill?”

“If you like,” Will answered distantly, bending down to examine the birdcage for a maker's mark.

Hannibal stood between Will and the bar. He quickly filled two snifters and then returned to the fireplace. He handed Will a glass and lifted his own in a toast, brandy burning red in the firelight. “To the investigation.”

Will tilted his glass to Hannibal in return, admiring the honey glow, then held it under his nose to breathe in the scent of warm spice and oak and dried fruit. It was probably some ridiculously rare vintage. He supposed it would be rude not to drink it and obvious if he didn’t, with Lecter watching him like that, expectant and hopeful. He tipped the glass to his mouth and swallowed mellow fire.

The brandy had an odd taste, Will thought as he licked his lips. Like oranges and… and blood. Human blood.

Will started violently, dropping his snifter as the room started to shimmy around him. The glass turned end over end and shattered on the dark wood floor, the remaining liquor spreading across the old planks and soaking into the edge of a small oriental rug. Will staggered backwards, eyes wide and shocked, pupils blown. He slapped a hand over his mouth to conceal lengthening fangs and retreated further until he hit the bookcase behind him, harsh frightened breath caught in his chest.

“What have you done? His muffled voice was shocked and hurt. “What did you give me?”

“It is a medicine of my own design,” Hannibal said, wiping the corners of his mouth casually. He set his glass on the mantle and came slowly closer.

“Medicine?” Will gasped. He clutched desperately at the shelves behind him to keep himself upright.

“Of a sort. I call it Revelation.”

“You what?”

“I didn’t really need it,” Hannibal admitted apologetically. “Your eyes gave you away immediately. Of course. Endless eyes with no limbal rings. You only see that in immortals. It can be difficult to spot, but when the eyes are light, like yours, it becomes much easier. Then there was the matter of your unusual sunglasses, the cold skin and heartless wrist beneath those leather gloves. Would I be right in assuming you wear the gloves when you haven’t fed?”

Will nodded without thinking, remembering Hannibal catching his arm on the slick front steps to keep him from falling. Hannibal’s fingers pressing accidentally against his wrist beneath the hem of his leather glove where no pulse sounded.

“Do you deprive yourself quite often?” Hannibal inquired.

Will pressed his hand to his chest to feel his heart beginning to race with borrowed blood then shook his head, confused. “If you already knew then why? Why?”

Hannibal stepped nearer. “I was curious what would happen. I’ve used the cocktail on other immortals over the years, but never on a vampire.”

Other immortals? Will thought, baffled.

Hannibal came nearer still until he was crowding Will back against the bookcase with his body. He cocked his head and leaned into Will’s throat, drawing a long breath.

“Fascinating,” he commented, retreating just a bit. “It gives you just the faintest scent of lilies.” “It makes the djinn smell a little like cinnamon,” he offered. “A chemical reaction, I presume. I’m still studying the exact mechanics of it.”

Will stared at him. This close he could see Hannibal’s pupils filling his eyes, pushing out the inquisitive amber of his irises. He could see the fluttering pulse in Hannibal's neck and smell a faint new scent about him as well. Not lilies. Something like Christmas citrus stuck with cloves.

“You administered it to yourself,” Will spat. “You administered it to yourself and then…” He licked his lips and swallowed hard. “It was your blood in the brandy.”

“Clever boy,” Hannibal agreed, delighted at how quickly Will had figured that out.

Fear and rage burned in Will’s gut. He darted forward and seized Hannibal by the lapels of his jacket, pulling him flush to his body. He tangled one hand in Hannibal’s hair and yanked his head back bearing his throat.

Hannibal’s pulse jumped at the feeling of Will’s teeth against his jugular, sharp points barely piercing the skin. Before Will could tear into his throat, he was overcome with invading languor. He staggered heavily, releasing his grip on Hannibal's hair and crumpling to his knees.

Hannibal looked down and lifted Will’s chin gently. “Revelation contains a powerful sedative, I’m afraid. You understand.”

Hannibal pressed his fingers to the shallow punctures in his neck then touched his bloody fingertips to Will’s slightly parted lips, shivering when he felt Will’s tongue flick over them instinctively.

“Next time, ask first,” Hannibal chided. His fingers slid along the curve of Will’s lower lip, pushing it out of shape and exposing the point of one fang. “I might be willing to let you drink from me, if you were careful. It would be a rare experience, I imagine, and useful for my study.”

Will blinked rapidly, trying to process this bizarre, unprecedented offer. He ran his tongue over his slowly warming lips, chasing the faint taste of Hannibal’s tainted blood.

As he gazed up at Hannibal, he began to recede as though backing away down a long straight hallway. Will’s eyes fluttered shut and Hannibal and the rest of the world disappeared. When he woke, he was home. Head pillowed on his arms at his own kitchen table with no memory of returning.


	6. Chapter 6

**Dockworkers Agitate for Additional Night Watchmen**  
_Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, 8 March 1854_

“He knows,” Will said dully, setting his spectacles aside and rubbing his hands over his face. "Dr. Lecter knows. He felt my heart. He saw my eyes. He knows.”

“What?” Abigail exclaimed, shoving her chair back from the scarred kitchen table and stumbling to her feet. “When did he find out? How does he know?”

She swayed nervously in the middle of the room, torn between conflicting impulses. The hem of her wide taffeta skirt swept the floor, casting restless shadows in the flickering yellow light of the oil lamp. 

She looked through the door into the adjacent sitting room, pulling her hands through her carefully curled hair as she scanned the overstuffed bookshelves, calculating how long it would take to pack only what they needed. What was only what they needed? Books definitely. Oh, but they couldn’t possibly take them all! Her microscope and slides, of course. Her dolls? Maybe one; she was getting too old for dolls anyway.

She broke off these frantic considerations and turned back around to look at Will who was still sitting at the table with his head in his hands. 

“Well,” she prompted, impatient and frightened. “Are we going?”

Will sighed and stood. He recalled the warmth of Hannibal’s regard, even after Hannibal knew what he was, even after he’d quite literally shown his teeth, and the pointed press of Hannibal’s curiosity, the desperate, familiar hunger it in.

He walked to Abigail and took her trembling hands in his. “You have a whole life here, Abigail. Friends, school, your young Marissa.” He smiled faintly. “Very likely a promising career as a doctor in your own right. I would not take that from you. If there is any way….”

Something in his voice, in his careful words, snagged her attention. She held tight to his hands and looked up into his strange boundless eyes, willing him to make it all right.

“You wouldn’t leave me behind, would you, Will?”

He shook his head. “Never. I am bound to care for you. I promised your father I would care for you.”

“While you were killing him,” she retorted. She tried for a sneer, but it was a bitter childish thing, masking deep undying hurt.

“Yes,” Will acknowledged, as he had so many times before. As he would until she no longer needed it. “I killed him and saved you and you became my responsibility. I am bound to care for you, to protect you.” 

He pulled her shivering into his arms and tucked her head under his chin. “But it is for love as well as duty, my Abigail.”

Abigail rested her cheek against the rough wool of Will’s suit coat, wrapped her fingers nervously around the lapel. “Promise?” she whispered.

Will nodded and brushed her frazzled hair back from her forehead. “I promise,” he whispered back.

Will waited out the night on the pale chintz sofa in the front parlor- rifle to hand and Abigail tucked in close against his side, asleep. When dawn broke without the crackle of torches or the clamoring calamity of armed men on the cobbles outside, Will knew he had been right- Hannibal was too curious about too many things. He intended to keep Will’s secret. For a time. At the very least until he’d gained whatever knowledge about Will’s…condition, that he could.


End file.
